GRP busts major arms racket at Bhusaval

GRP busts major arms racket at Bhusaval
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NAGPUR, FEB 27: As many as 29 firearms including eight revolvers, a pistol and an assortment of small and long-barrel country-made revolvers, were recovered in a major haul effected recently by the Government Railway Police at Bhusaval, falling under the Nagpur GRP division.

With this, the GRP has claimed to have busted a major racket involved in arms-trafficking. Three suspects have been arrested and a gun-factory at village Pachauri in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh was raided since the seizure. The arms consignment was being taken to Jhansi by rail, Special Inspector General of Police (Railways) Suprakash Chakravorty told newsmen on Saturday.

Constable R N Upadhyay, posted at Bhusaval railway station, noticed two persons loitering around in a suspicious manner with a heavy suitcase. When he intercepted and questioned them about the contents of the suitcase, the duo abandoned the luggage and started running away. However, Upadhyay chased them and managed to apprehend one of the duo.

Subsequent search of the suitcase yeilded the firearms, some of which were in assembled condition while some others in dismantled state, and nine live cartridges of 9 mm specification. One of the firearms, an automatic pistol, carried a "made in Singapur" label while another, a revolver, was made in England. The country-made revolvers comprised of short and long-barrel as well as double-barrel weapons.

Upadhyay got in touch with his senior, PSI Kanse, and colleagues ASI J K Potdukhe and constables A K Dande and Nitin Ukhe-Patil and the matter was brought to the notice of SP (GRP) Vineet Agrawal, who was camping at Bhusaval since the Punjab Mail fire tragedy. Wasting little time, the senior officer asked constables Dande and Patil to search nearby STD booths in anticipation of apprehended suspect's aide making a call to the source from where the consignment either originated or was being taken to.

This led to the arrest of the second suspect too and they were later identified as Nareshsingh Sujansingh Parihar of Mhow near Indore and Shivkumar Babulal Pandey of Jhansi. The latter told police that he called an STD booth at Burhanpur to inform that the consignment had been seized by the police.

Agrawal asked the suspect to make another call at the same number in Burhanpur informing that they got the consignment relieved after bribing the cops with Rs 200. A team was sent to Burhanpur and with the help of the police there, the investigators learnt about the gun-factory at Pachauri which was being run by the third suspect, Rishipalsingh Premsingh Patwa. The factory was raided and Patwa was taken into custody. All the three suspects have since been remanded to police custody till March 2 by a court.

Hitherto, investigations revealed that the gang was involved in trafficking firearms mainly from Pachauri to Jhansi. Parihar and Pandey had been to Pachauri from Jhansi and were on a return journey via Shegaon, Jalamb and Bhusaval with the arms suitcase, Chakravorty said.

``We are investigating whether they had any motive other than gun-running,'' he said, adding, the GRP had been on an alert ever since getting reports about firearms reaching Mumbai all the way from Nepal or Uttar Pradesh.